3 ms·

Sounds like customers should have judged by themselves it wasnt a safe van to put your valuable antiques in.

by aragot 13y ago

enscr 13y ago
Hindsight is 20/20
- aragot 13y ago
  Foresight too, e.g. I didn't do it. Because hosting BitCoins in an online wallet looks like a scam from a hundred miles. In a foreign country. On a website. Hosting my emails in Gmail doesn't look safe either, to be honest, but at least it's not plain money and Google still needs to keep their reputation. For now.
wpietri 13y ago
In addition to this being the usual hindsight horseshit, it also displays startling ignorance of how markets work. If every time I want to buy a pack of gum I have to investigate every entity in the production and distribution chain, then I will never buy gum because the transaction cost is well above the value. This is why businesses, who have substantial lobbying power, are generally ok with government regulation and often impose substantial self-regulation. For example, take food. Restaurants here in San Francisco are all obliged to display their latest health department score. Almost everybody loves the system. Consumers love it because it tells them how safe their food is. Well-run restaurants love it because they can prove that their place is well run. Badly-run restaurants probably hate it, but that's fine; they're not good marketplace participants in the first place. So your notion that you should go and check the oil level on every vehicle that ever contains any of your stuff is ridiculous. It's a handy way for you to feel smug blaming people who are suffering, not a reasonable suggestion for marketplace design.
- aragot 13y ago
  I'm not talking about checking every screw of the truck. I'm saying that an unmaintained truck with lots of valuables in it is suspicious, and you should tust it for what it is. I'll get negative poins again just because people don't like to be told what they should have known: Bitcoins smell like a Ponzi scheme and, until they have proven themselves opposite, you should remain very wary of the money you put in. Do you invest in penny stocks? Nope. Why? Because they smell bad, even if their promoters make it look like they've quadrupled their value in just 4 months! An online safe with millions of valuables? Shouldn't you wait for the proof it's good? Or do you assume it's a good safe as is? Is it really wise to assume something is safe? Oh I see negative HN points will rain on me. Not wise from me to put people in front of their responsibilities. I'm sorry for people who lost money. Some of them will have a hard life. Losing money is never a good experience, I myself lost a quarter of my savings when the Australian dollar dropped. But do I blame the Australian gov? The EU gov? The regulators? Nope. It's my job to know when the AUD drops. Even if i can't inspect all parts of the economy. As a revenge, give me negative points.
  - wpietri 13y ago
    Personally, I think Bitcoin is currently a tulip bulb mania, not a Ponzi scheme. (It might one day also be an interesting payment mechanism, but that's not why most people at MtGox bought Bitcoin.) That said, I don't think the average investor has the chops necessary to fully evaluate a bank, which is effectively what MtGox was. The information asymmetries are just too severe. In this case, depositors didn't lose money on Bitcoin itself, but in what was basically a bank collapse due to negligence or fraud. (Or both; we don't know yet.) One solution is to always blame the victims. You can't go wrong there! But the solution that I prefer is to regulate banks, and forbid unregulated banks from operating in the regulators' jurisdictions. This oops-the-money-is-all-gone horseshit is exactly the kind of thing an auditor or a bank regulator would have spotted in their first week.
- brasmasus 13y ago
  Any 10-minute Google search over the past year would reveal that Gox had been having absurd problems for awhile and that there were several more reputable exchanges available to would-be day traders. Over the past year, a visit to any bitcoin forum wouldn't be complete without a highly visible 'Gox screwed up and their support sucks. Stay away!' thread. Unsurprisingly, the Gox market share had shrunk to a fraction of its former might months ago. Sad as it may be for those affected, this is how a market learns to value one competitor over another. The free-market result of the Gox situation is that exchanges and other custodial companies in the space are now differentiating themselves with enhaced security, transparency and 'proof of reserves' features. No cumbersome regulatory framework required.

Sounds like customers should have judged by themselves it wasnt a safe van to put your valuable antiques in.

by aragot 13y ago

Sounds like customers should have judged by themselves it wasnt a safe van to put your valuable antiques in.

enscr 13y ago

Hindsight is 20/20

aragot 13y ago
Foresight too, e.g. I didn't do it. Because hosting BitCoins in an online wallet looks like a scam from a hundred miles. In a foreign country. On a website. Hosting my emails in Gmail doesn't look safe either, to be honest, but at least it's not plain money and Google still needs to keep their reputation. For now.

wpietri 13y ago

In addition to this being the usual hindsight horseshit, it also displays startling ignorance of how markets work. If every time I want to buy a pack of gum I have to investigate every entity in the production and distribution chain, then I will never buy gum because the transaction cost is well above the value. This is why businesses, who have substantial lobbying power, are generally ok with government regulation and often impose substantial self-regulation. For example, take food. Restaurants here in San Francisco are all obliged to display their latest health department score. Almost everybody loves the system. Consumers love it because it tells them how safe their food is. Well-run restaurants love it because they can prove that their place is well run. Badly-run restaurants probably hate it, but that's fine; they're not good marketplace participants in the first place. So your notion that you should go and check the oil level on every vehicle that ever contains any of your stuff is ridiculous. It's a handy way for you to feel smug blaming people who are suffering, not a reasonable suggestion for marketplace design.

aragot 13y ago
I'm not talking about checking every screw of the truck. I'm saying that an unmaintained truck with lots of valuables in it is suspicious, and you should tust it for what it is. I'll get negative poins again just because people don't like to be told what they should have known: Bitcoins smell like a Ponzi scheme and, until they have proven themselves opposite, you should remain very wary of the money you put in. Do you invest in penny stocks? Nope. Why? Because they smell bad, even if their promoters make it look like they've quadrupled their value in just 4 months! An online safe with millions of valuables? Shouldn't you wait for the proof it's good? Or do you assume it's a good safe as is? Is it really wise to assume something is safe? Oh I see negative HN points will rain on me. Not wise from me to put people in front of their responsibilities. I'm sorry for people who lost money. Some of them will have a hard life. Losing money is never a good experience, I myself lost a quarter of my savings when the Australian dollar dropped. But do I blame the Australian gov? The EU gov? The regulators? Nope. It's my job to know when the AUD drops. Even if i can't inspect all parts of the economy. As a revenge, give me negative points.
- wpietri 13y ago
  Personally, I think Bitcoin is currently a tulip bulb mania, not a Ponzi scheme. (It might one day also be an interesting payment mechanism, but that's not why most people at MtGox bought Bitcoin.) That said, I don't think the average investor has the chops necessary to fully evaluate a bank, which is effectively what MtGox was. The information asymmetries are just too severe. In this case, depositors didn't lose money on Bitcoin itself, but in what was basically a bank collapse due to negligence or fraud. (Or both; we don't know yet.) One solution is to always blame the victims. You can't go wrong there! But the solution that I prefer is to regulate banks, and forbid unregulated banks from operating in the regulators' jurisdictions. This oops-the-money-is-all-gone horseshit is exactly the kind of thing an auditor or a bank regulator would have spotted in their first week.
brasmasus 13y ago
Any 10-minute Google search over the past year would reveal that Gox had been having absurd problems for awhile and that there were several more reputable exchanges available to would-be day traders. Over the past year, a visit to any bitcoin forum wouldn't be complete without a highly visible 'Gox screwed up and their support sucks. Stay away!' thread. Unsurprisingly, the Gox market share had shrunk to a fraction of its former might months ago. Sad as it may be for those affected, this is how a market learns to value one competitor over another. The free-market result of the Gox situation is that exchanges and other custodial companies in the space are now differentiating themselves with enhaced security, transparency and 'proof of reserves' features. No cumbersome regulatory framework required.